A defiant President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday adamantly denied reports that Russia had compromising personal and financial information about him, calling it a "tremendous blot" on the record of the intelligence community if material with any such allegations had been released.

The incoming president, in his first news conference since late July, firmly chided news organizations for publishing the material late Tuesday night. After weeks of scoffing at reports that Russians had interfered in the election, he conceded publicly for the first time that Russia was likely responsible for the hacking of the Democratic National Committee. "As far as hacking, I think it was Russia," he said and quickly added that the United States is hacked by other countries as well, including China.

Trump's extraordinary defense against the unsubstantiated intelligence report, just nine days before his inauguration, dominated a highly anticipated press conference in which he also announced a new Cabinet member, detailed his plans to disentangle himself from his sprawling global business empire, gave his outlook on the future of the "Obamacare" health care law and said he would soon nominate someone to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court.

"I think it's a disgrace that information would be let out. I saw the information, I read the information outside of that meeting," he said, a reference to a classified briefing he received from intelligence leaders. "It's all fake news, it's phony stuff, it didn't happen," Trump said in a news conference that saw him repeatedly joust with reporters. "It was gotten by opponents of ours."

President-Elect Trump on Russia and Putin

President-elect Trump discusses his relationship with Russia and Vladimir Putin.

(Published Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2017)

Asked about his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump boasted that it is an improvement over what he called America's current "horrible relationship with Russia" and did not criticize the Russian leader for any interference in the election.

"If Putin likes Donald Trump, guess what, folks, that's called an asset not a liability. I don't know if I'm going to get along with Vladimir Putin - I hope I do - but there's a good chance I won't."

Trump, Vice President-elect Mike Pence and incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer also denounced the report about Russia's influence on Trump, and the incoming president said it never should have been released. He thanked some news organizations for showing restraint.

The responses came after NBC News reported, citing two U.S. officials, that briefing materials prepared for Trump included damaging allegations, which have not been verified by American intelligence agencies, about his dealings with the Russians.

A senior U.S. intelligence official with knowledge of the preparation for the Trump briefing told NBC News that Trump was not briefed on the so-called two-page addendum outlining the allegations derived from a 35-page dossier originally generated as part of anti-Trump Republican opposition research. Multiple officials said the summary was included in the material prepared for the briefers, but the senior official told NBC News the briefing was oral and no documents were handed to the Trump team. Trump said Wednesday he was made aware of the information "outside that meeting."

The alleged dossier published by BuzzFeed includes claims that the Russian government has been cultivating, supporting and assisting Trump for five years. It said the Russians even obtained compromising information in an effort to blackmail Trump.

Trump Refuses CNN Question at Press Conference

President-elect Donald Trump's press conference turned argumentative when he denied a CNN reporter a chance to ask a question at the end of a response criticizing the release of a Jan. 10, 2017, Buzzfeed report.

(Published Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2017)

The document has not been authenticated by BuzzFeed or NBC News and contains obvious errors.

Trump and President Barack Obama were briefed on the intelligence community's findings last week, a U.S. official told The Associated Press.

Media outlets reported on the document late Tuesday and Trump denounced it on Twitter before his news conference as "fake news," suggesting he was being persecuted for defeating other GOP presidential hopefuls and Democrat Hillary Clinton in the election.

Incoming White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, asked Wednesday on NBC's "Today" show if he looked Trump in the eye to see if the allegations published in Buzzfeed Tuesday night were true, responded, "He said it was total garbage, and I'm keeping it clean."

Questioned further, Priebus said, "The other salacious garbage that was in this report didn’t happen."

According to The Guardian, Sen. John McCain shared documents with the FBI director, James Comey, "alleging secret contacts between the Trump campaign and Moscow and that Russian intelligence had personally compromising material on the president-elect himself."

President-Elect Trump on Obamacare

President-elect Donald Trump discusses when he plan to replace Obamacare in a news conference in New York City on Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2017.

(Published Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2017)

McCain, R-Ariz., released a statement Wednesday saying that late last year he received "sensitive information that has since been made public. Upon examination of the contents, and unable to make a judgment about their accuracy, I delivered the information to the director of the FBI. That has been the extent of my contact with the FBI or any other government agency regarding this issue.”

Senator Dick Durbin, D-Ill., called for an investigation into reports that "U.S. intelligence community briefed President Obama and President-elect Trump on Russian efforts to collect 'personally and financially compromising' information on the president-elect."

“The American people need to know the credibility of these allegations of attempts to compromise the president-elect—his public statements about Russia and President Putin are even more worrisome in this context," Durbin said in a statement.

The last time Trump held a news conference he was plunging into a heated general election campaign with Clinton and suggested Russia could help dig up some of his rival's emails.

Now only days from his inauguration as the nation's 45th president, Trump announced that he would nominate David Shulkin to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs, elevating him from his current role as VA undersecretary.

He promised that a replacement for the health care overhaul would be offered "essentially simultaneously" with the repeal of Obama's signature health law - something that would be virtually impossible to quickly pass given the complexity of the policy changes. Republicans agree on repealing the law but nearly seven years after its passage have failed to reach agreement on its replacement.

Trump on Cyber Security Strategy

President-elect Donald Trump outlines his plan for American cyber security and the team picked to investigate in his Tuesday press conference.

(Published Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2017)

Trump has repeatedly said that repealing and replacing "Obamacare" was a top priority, but has never fully explained how he plans to do it. House Speaker Paul Ryan has said that the House would seek to take both steps "concurrently."

Turning to his plans to build a border wall along the southern border, Trump said he would immediately begin negotiations with Mexico on funding his promised wall after he takes office. He again vowed that "Mexico will pay for the wall but it will be reimbursed." Trump recommitted to his plans to impose a border tax on manufacturers who shut plants and move production abroad. While the tax policy could retain jobs, it would also carry the risk of increasing prices for consumers.

Trump also said he would probably name his choice to fill the vacancy left by the death of Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia in about two weeks after the inauguration.

And he announced his plans for the future of the Trump Organization, bringing to the podium attorney Sheri Dillon of Morgan Lewis, who worked with the Trump Organization on the arrangement.

Dillon said the Trump Organization would continue to pursue deals in the U.S., though Trump will relinquish control of the company to his sons and an executive, put his business assets in a trust and take other steps to isolate himself from his business. She said Trump "should not be expected to destroy the company he built."

The move appears to contradict a previous pledge by the president-elect. In a tweet last month, Trump vowed to do "no new deals" while in office.

Trump on Picking a New Supreme Court Justice

President-elect Donald Trump discusses his timeline on picking a new Supreme Court Justice to replace Antonin Scalia's spot in his Tuesday press conference.

(Published Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2017)

The lawyer said Trump would donate all profits from foreign government payments to his hotels to the U.S. treasury.

And pushing back against some ethics experts, Dillon said the so-called emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution does not apply to foreign payments to Trump's company. While some ethics officials have said that foreign leaders who pay for rooms and services at his various hotels would run afoul of the constitutional ban on foreign gifts or payments to the president, Dillon referred to it as a "fair-value exchange."